12 January, 2009

Office Politics and Dysfunctional Activities - Stephen R Covey

How much time people spend in office politics? By office politics, Covey meant, reading the tea leaves, dealing with hidden agendas, fighting cross-group conflict, etc. The data says that 75% of people claim they spend 25% of their time on these things. 25% say that 50% of their time is spent in dysfunctional activities. Urgency replaces important activities.

The key point is that people feel they spend a lot of time on dysfunctional activities.

Covey’s Six Metastasizing Cancers (Victimism):

• Criticizing
• Complaining
• Comparing
• Competing
• Contending
• Cynicism

The point here is that these are ineffective behaviours and you end up acting like a victim.